The present invention relates to a process and an apparatus for the conveying of printing products in an imbricated formation.
Such an apparatus is known, for example, from Swiss Patent Specification 630,583 and the corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 4,320,894. In the imbricated formation fed by means of a conveying device to a takeover region, each printing product rests on the succeeding one. The leading edges of the printing products are consequently overlapped by the preceding printing product. The conveying device transports the printing products essentially in horizontal direction, while the conveying direction of the removal conveyor in the takeover region runs from down to up. The removal conveyor has individually controllable grippers, which are arranged on a drawing member and, in the takeover region, grip the printing products fed by the feed conveyor at the leading edges and raise them up from the imbricated formation. The imbricated formation is consequently peeled off. If, in the case of the known apparatus, the conveying rate of the removal conveyor is half as great as the conveying rate of the conveying device, in each case two printing products, lying one on top of the other, come into the engagement of a gripper, so that in each case two printing products, lying one on top of the other, are lifted off with each other. Consequently, in the case of this known apparatus, in the case of fed imbricated formations in which a single printing product rests in each case on the succeeding one, either each individual printing product is taken up by a gripper and peeled off from the imbricated formation, or two printing products are pushed one over the other, so that each gripper grips and carries away two printing products lying one on top of the other.
It is the object of the present invention to propose a process and to provide an apparatus for the conveying of printing products with which printing products fed in the widest variety of formations can be conveyed further individually or in formations in which in each case only a single printing product rests on the other.